5 questions for Chuck Hagel and John Kerry

Hagel and Kerry are set to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. | AP Photos

3. Is the Pentagon still skeptical about intervention?

Hagel and the military’s top uniformed leader, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, have spent months cautioning about a potential intervention in Syria. The rebels there are loaded with Al Qaeda fighters, they’ve warned. The complexity of the conflict means Washington may not be able to fully understand or control it. And once the U.S. gets involved, no one may remember the initial intent was for “tailored, limited” strikes.

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“You better be damn sure, as sure as you can be, before you get into something, because once you’re into it, there isn’t any backing out, whether it’s a no-fly zone, safe zone, protect these — whatever it is,” Hagel warned a Senate panel in the spring. “Once you’re in, you can’t unwind it. You can’t just say, ‘Well, it’s not going as well as I thought it would go, so we’re going to get out.’”

Hagel and Dempsey have always made clear that they’ll give Obama “military options” and stand ready to execute orders if and when they arrive. But senators skeptical about a Syria intervention may arrive Tuesday armed with a long list of Hagel and Dempsey quotes and ask how the president can back a bombing over the warnings of his top military chiefs.

4. What are the risks of delay?

Obama said that Dempsey has assured him a U.S. strike will be just as effective against Syria “tomorrow or next week or one month from now” as it would have when the White House first began signaling its desire for an attack late Aug. 23.

Senators may very well ask Kerry and Hagel how effective a strike would be if it has been so well telegraphed to the world.

The House isn’t scheduled to reconvene until Sept. 9, and the Senate’s deliberations are legendary. So if Congress does authorize a Syria strike, it might not happen until the middle of the month, by which time Assad will have had ample warning to prepare his military units.

The Tomahawk cruise missiles Obama is said to favor for his “limited” strike can hit targets with GPS precision at long ranges, but they do not pack much of a wallop. So can a “limited, tailored” strike on a dictator who’s had nearly a month to prepare actually have much of an effect?

5. What does success look like?

Before Obama’s decision to go to Congress, the White House aggressively managed expectations for a potential Syria strike. The “limited” goal, it said, was to “punish” Assad for using chemical weapons. Who will assess the success of “punishment,” senators might ask — and might it require multiple attacks instead of just one?

Kerry seemed to leave the door open for that possibility on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” when host David Gregory asked him whether Americans can be confident a first strike on Syria might be the last.

“That will depend on whether Assad decides to use chemical weapons or not,” Kerry said. “The president of the United States does not intend to and does not want to see the United States assume responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is not what he is setting out to do. What he is setting out to do is enforce the norm with respect to the international convention on chemical weapons, and it is targeted to do that. It will clearly have an impact on Assad’s military capacity.”

Having an “impact” on Assad’s “capability” can mean a lot of different things. How, when the goal is “punishment,” will the U.S. know when the job is done?